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William Kirby

"Now, I believe that war is never inevitable until it starts, but there has been a great proclivity in human history, and including in recent history, for war."

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"Now, I believe that war is never inevitable until it starts, but there has been a great proclivity in human history, and including in recent history, for war."

Exlpore more War quotes

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Asa Don Brown

"But to us of a later generation...it is inconceivable that millions of Christian men should have killed and tortured each other, because Napoleon was ambitious, Alexander firm, English policy crafty, and the Duke of Oldenburg hardly treated. We cannot grasp the connections between these circumstances and the bare fact of murder and violence, nor why the duke's wrongs should induce thousands of men from the other side of Europe to pillage and murder the inhabitants of the Smolensk and Moscow provinces and to be slaughtered by them."

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Asa Don Brown

"Military foolishness is ultimately suicidal. They believe that by risking death they pay the price of any violent behavior against enemies of their own choosing. They have the invader mentality, that false sense of freedom from responsibility for your own actions."

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Asa Don Brown

"That's the attractive thing about war, said Rosewater. "Absolutely everybody gets a little something."

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Asa Don Brown

"A self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war."

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Asa Don Brown

"War is the business of barbarians."

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Asa Don Brown

"What obsession do men have for destruction and murder? Who do we electrocute men for murdering an individual and then pin a purple heart on them for mass slaughter of someone arbitrarily labeled 'enemy?"

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Asa Don Brown

"The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war."

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Asa Don Brown

"The casualty of war is our disappearing humanity."

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Asa Don Brown

"Rostov kept thinking about that brilliant feat of his, which, to his surprise, had gained him the St. George Cross and even given him the reputation of a brave man - and there was something in it that he was unable to understand. "So they're even more afraid than we are!" he thought. "So that's all there is to so-called heroism? And did I really do it for the fatherland? And what harm had he done, with his dimple and his light blue eyes? But how frightened he was! He thought I'd kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand faltered. And they gave me the St. George Cross. I understand nothing, nothing!"

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Asa Don Brown

"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. "Ah, my friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he added."

Explore more quotes by William Kirby

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William Kirby
"Another goal is to look to the resources we have and to see how we could do better to plan, in a sense, for the faculty and infrastructure that we will need to study Asia well into the 21st century."
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William Kirby
"I don't believe that economic and cultural interaction automatically brings greater peace and understanding, although it may help in that regard."
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William Kirby
"So, anything that avoids a conflict that could draw in, unhappily again, outside powers such as the United States or revisit, for example, Japan's interests in the Taiwan area would be the last thing that anyone would want."
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William Kirby
"The Chinese government since 1979 has been very successful in economic development, and successful enough, simply by surviving, in the realm of political development."
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William Kirby
"You could argue that war is always an irrational act, and yet many states enter into military conflict out of rational calculation or national interest or the stability or longevity of their regime."
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William Kirby
"The most important thing that certainly the United States and other Asian and Pacific actors have done is to urge that whatever happens, however the dispute is resolved, that it be resolved peacefully."
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William Kirby
"I would hope we would begin a series of projects that would do more to bring the different parts of the university together in the study of Asia, for example, in the study of the professions in Asia."
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William Kirby
"So, I think China desperately needs to legitimize some form of opposition."
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William Kirby
"The reform of state industry, and most directly related to that, the banking sector, is enormously daunting."
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William Kirby
"And look at the mess that Russia is; most Chinese don't want to follow that."
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